Author: Common Dreams

It is well known that no one is teaching critical race theory in the K-12 system. The current discussions of Critical Race Theory (CRT) are the result of a tried-and-true right-wing strategy to create weird forms of cathexis where they link the name of something obscure with things that bother people at their core, to create lightning rods by which to channel toxic energy through the bodies of their followers, in ways that bond people to their to their death cult. But in our rush to expose the dishonesty behind the vilification of CRT we might be passing up...

Earlier in the week, a friend texted me this prediction about the outcome of Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder trial: “Kyle Rittenhouse walks or only [gets convicted] of minor charges and gets probation.” Though my response was glib, I thought it was realistic at the time: “He’ll be convicted. He won’t walk. He may not get as much time as he deserves, but he’s going to jail.” My logic was based on the fact that all of Rittenhouse’s victims were white and that you can’t kill white men in America, even if you’re white yourself, and not face severe consequences. That...

“Facebook wants you to believe that the problems we’re talking about are unsolvable. They want you to believe in false choices. They want you to believe that you must choose between a Facebook full of divisive and extreme content or losing one of the most important values our country was founded upon: free speech. That you must choose between public oversight of Facebook’s choices and your personal privacy. That to be able to share fun photos of your kids with old friends, you must also be inundated with anger-driven virality. They want you to believe that this is just...

Is what’s good for the goose is good for the gander? In letting stand Texas’s draconian new anti-abortion law, The Supreme Court allowed states to deputize almost anyone in the world as bounty hunters to go after and punish anyone in Texas taking part in a Constitutionally legal and protected act, namely performing, aiding, or abetting an abortion after 6 weeks of pregnancy. In her blistering dissent to the Supreme Court’s inaction Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the Texas law “a breathtaking act of defiance — of the Constitution, of this Court’s precedents, and of the rights of women seeking...

The costs and consequences of America’s twenty-first-century wars have by now been well-documented — a staggering $8 trillion in expenditures and more than 380,000 civilian deaths, as calculated by Brown University’s Costs of War project. The question of who has benefited most from such an orgy of military spending has, unfortunately, received far less attention. Corporations large and small have left the financial feast of that post-9/11 surge in military spending with genuinely staggering sums in hand. After all, Pentagon spending has totaled an almost unimaginable $14 trillion-plus since the start of the Afghan War in 2001, up to...